


No Sound, No Sin, No Sacrifice

by Azashenya



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Heartbreaking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 01:10:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azashenya/pseuds/Azashenya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A father dying in a car crash, remembering scenes from his life: children, wife, Daddy and Papa Chris.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Sound, No Sin, No Sacrifice

The settled feeling of a long drive: boot full of bags, music playing, kids quiet in the back seat. Matty glances over at his wife, exchanging smiles before returning his gaze to the dark road.

“Do you want to swap?” Kelly asks in her familiar soft alto.

“Not yet, maybe at the next town,” Matty replies with another quick glance. “How are the kids?”

Kelly twists around in her seat to look at them, trading an amused look with her daughter. “They're fine,” she says, facing forward again. “Danny looks like he's asleep but Mel's still awake.”

“You ok honey?” Matty calls over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off the road.

“I'm fine Dad. Are we nearly there yet?” there is only a trace of whine in her nine year old voice.

“It's still a couple of hours away.”

“Would you like me to change the CD?” Kelly asks.

“Sure, can we...” her words are cut off as a bright light suddenly floods the car.

In panic Matty wrenches the wheel towards the clear section of road. The crash fills their world with noise as the truck hits the side of the car. They are thrown one way and then the other as the car spins off the road, tires shrieking. Time dilates as the car rolls, once, twice, down the slope, still rocking as it settles.

The next thing Matty is aware of is a feeling of nausea, of dizziness, the seat and car pressing against him. Opening his eyes he can see Kelly, he tries to touch her but his hands are still clutching the steering wheel and his fingers feel like they belong to someone else. He tries to say her name but moving his jaw produces a sudden pain through the haze. He can't tell if he managed to say anything, the sound of the crash still echoes in his ears.

//Kelly, my beloved, my wife.//

 

He doesn't remember the first time they met, it is something that he regrets, he feels he should remember it. But after he moved to Auckland he saw her at a medieval event there and she was a familiar face. A gown of dark green linen. Nice chest. Dark curly hair pulled back from her face. They had spoken, he'd been surprised to find she knew his name, “Antonio, good to see you again,” and embarrassed to admit he didn't know her name, “Isabella, my lord.” Later she would say that she had had her eye on him from the first time she saw him, three years earlier in Christchurch. He enjoyed her company, looked for her at each event or meeting, would offer his arm at balls, or his conversation at feasts. It took him most of a year before he asked her to go out with him, “What took you so long?” They had much in common and her love of music gave Matty reason to be grateful for his Papa Chris's long years of lessons.

His Papa Chris.

Matty had chosen the title himself, when he was sixteen, when his Dad (Scott) and Chris could finally get married. Okay, so it was a civil union, not a wedding per say. He had known growing up that he was the reason Daddy and Chris couldn't be together properly. They had told him when he was six that if people found out that they would take him away from them. He had been terrified when Nana and Grandad had found out, he had said the wrong thing, he didn't want to live with them, didn't want to lose his Daddy. But that had turned out okay. The adults had talked, and Daddy and Chris had come down too and he had been allowed to go home with them. He had been sorry to be going home early but been afraid that if he stayed he would never be allowed to go home. So he had begged and Daddy and Chris took him back home with them.

He remembers the first time he woke up and found Chris in his Daddy's bed. He had had a nightmare, he was only six. He remembers asking Chris about the spaceships on his pyjamas and Chris promising to show him Star Wars. Chris made them pancakes for breakfast and Matty put sugar on his and squeezed lemon over it, licking the sharp tasting juice off his fingers.

 

His mouth feels dry and gritty, with the tang of blood. He groans as he tries to move again and fails, at least he can unclench his hands from the wheel. He opens his mouth again, steeling himself against the pain, and tries to call his family's names. It feels like he's managed to croak something but he hears no sound beyond the continuing echoes in his brain. No sound.

 

A phone call at school, Kelly crying in his ear. Something about Danny and a broken plate. But Danny was only a baby, too small to be breaking plates. She said it again and he had realised that little Mel broke the plate, trying to be helpful, and that the crash hadn't woken Danny, asleep in his carrier. Kelly kept talking, saying how she woke Danny then broke another plate and he hadn't reacted. Matty had sat abruptly, his hands shaking, as he realised that his little boy was deaf.

There were doctors and specialists, and tests that made their little boy cry. The first time they were told 'it's incurable' they didn't believe it, seeking a second opinion, then a third. Eventually they had to face their new reality. Then there was telling their families. Papa Chris crying at the news, holding the baby that would never hear a song. “He has your Father's eyes, my Scott's eyes.” His long fingers stroke the baby's face as he watches while Danny's eyes eagerly watched the world. “Maybe he'll be an artist too.”

His Dad had been an artist, Scott Owens, but he had always just signed as S Owens. More than anything else he did paintings. Matty remembers trying to sit still while his Dad drew him. Before he had left home to go flatting his Dad had given him a book full of sketches of him growing up. After his Dad's funeral he had dug it out and sat with Kelly, looking through it and talking about his Dad. The paper had felt thick and heavy between his fingers as he turned each page, each drawing signed, detailed and loving. Chris had given him the only painted self portrait that Scott had left. “So Melissa will know what he looked like.” Chris had been close to tears. Matty had accepted it with a tight hug and hung it in the lounge.

 

He can feel the cold creeping in, seeping from the metal and plastic of the car. He manages reach out and touch Kelly, but she doesn't move and his hand is sticky when he pulls it back. As his head gets too heavy, and too painful, he rests it against the wheel.

 

She had looked so tired in the hospital bed, her face red with exertion and her curls plastered to her forehead and cheeks. Then they had put the baby in his arms, his daughter. So tiny and fragile, so precious. He had bent over to show Kelly, his heart full to bursting with pride and love for his two girls. They had so many visitors, friends and family, each come to see the baby, bringing gifts and well wishes. Dearest had been when his Dad and his Papa Chris had come in, his Dad looking so sick, but at least he was out of bed. Scott had sat down before letting Chris put his granddaughter into his arms. He had looked at her for a moment, “She's beautiful,” before looking up at Matty with a tight smile, “She has your Mother's eyes.” 

His Mother. Matty had met her once, had stopped in Wellington on his way north and hunted for a Rose Allison Mitchell. He had found her, a greyed out woman in a psychiatric residential care facility. He had found it hard to believe that this faded person would have done the things Papa Chris had, reluctantly, told him about. He had sat and talked with her, told her he was her son, hers and Scott's. He had been sickened by the way she spoke about his Father, as if he had been a thing she had owned, still owned. He had left, angry and disgusted, a bitter taste in his mouth. He never told his Father about it, but he had sent her flowers every Mother's day. She was, after all, his Mother. But he told his Papa Chris, and told him how grateful he was to have been raised by him and Dad, not by her. And Chris had smiled at him, a smile that reminded him of the first time he had called him Papa Chris.

His Dad and Chris had finished exchanging their vows and, while the final witnesses had been signing their names, Matty had thrown his arms around Chris and whispered in his ear, “Papa Chris.” He had seen that smile then, joyful, loving and touched. It had felt so good, knowing that everyone could now know how important Chris (Papa Chris) was to him and his Dad.

“Daddy and Chris love each other.” He knew that when he was six and that they both loved him, growing up he only doubted it once. There were stories when they were tucking him into bed, lessons and laughter. Looking back as an adult he knew that even their punishments showed their love, not that he would have said so if asked as a child.

 

In the dark and the cold and the silence his world is getting smaller, shrinking down to just his memories. 

 

He was fourteen. A month in Europe with Dad and Chris. Museums and castles, history. Dad and Chris collapsing into chairs and laughing at his energy, his enthusiasm.

Three weeks alone, the house all to himself. Feeling so adult and proud. Determined to do a good job. Looking forward to being together as a family, officially as well as practically. Then the phone rings in the middle of the night. Chris. Something bad has happened. His Dad will be alright. They'll be late home. Fear, pain, loss, hope.

Joy and relief when they get home. Shattered by a piece of paper. Must have been the blood. His Dad has HIV. Loss, grief, fear. Losing his Daddy.

Dad leaving. To protect them. Abandoning him. Trying to talk to him at school. His Dad ignoring him, like a knife in his heart. Papa Chris's pain. Anger, grief. Shouting at his Dad, how much he was hurting them. Hope, fear, he's coming back, soon.

Joy, relief, but still some anger and pain. Clinging to his Father. We won't let go, he'll never leave us again. Not until... Getting him back only to watch him die.

 

The lights of the rescuers play over the wreck but Matty never sees them.

 

Crash Kills Three  
In what police are desc-  
ribing as 'an horrific ac-  
cident' a family was ne-  
arly wiped out, just sou-  
th of Timaru, when the-  
ir car was hit by a truck.  
Sole survivor from the  
family was the deaf son  
(7 years old). Mother a-  
nd daughter (9) were kil-  
led on impact. Father d-  
ied on the way to the ho-  
spital. The truck driver  
is in a stable condition i-  
n Timaru hospital. The  
holiday road toll now 4.

 

Chris is trying not to cry as he walks through the hospital. His Matty, Scott's Matty, little Matty, is gone. And Matty's Kelly and little Melissa. All gone.

The little boy looks up from the bed as Chris enters the ward. One small hand moves to talk, the other is weighted down with a heavy white cast. But half a sign is enough for Chris to know what he is saying.

“Papa Chris.”

Choking back his tears he crosses to the bed, speaking and signing, “Danny, I'm here.”

He carefully takes the seven year old into his arms, mindful of his injuries, and strokes his dark hair. Automatically he starts singing quietly to the grandson who has never heard him.

Danny rests his head against his Papa Chris's chest, feeling the familiar reassuring vibration, and weeps.


End file.
